The Role of Experience in the Christian Life

We’re living in a day when personal experience has been elevated above everything else as the final criterion of right and wrong. Just think of all of the people who try to justify themselves on the basis of what and how they feel. Divorce is routinely excused on the basis of a married couple’s no longer feeling like they are in love. We are told that homosexuality should be embraced as a moral good because some homosexuals report having felt an attraction to the same sex from a young age. Even many professing Christians make their decisions about right and wrong based on how they feel.  

It’s hard to have a discussion with someone who makes their experience the final arbiter of reality. Many people embrace the old adage that “a person with an experience is never at the mercy of a person with an argument.” But it this really true?

Ultimately, we have to disagree with this assertion, but not because experience is not a valuable tutor. It can help us connect theory to practice and abstract concepts to concrete situations. It assists us in sifting through the nuances of living in this complex world. Experience can be a valuable asset when it is used correctly.  There are even some experiences that seem to prove that experience trumps argumentation.

I think of the example of Roger Bannister. Before 1954, many people argued that no human being could run a mile in under four minutes. Bannister broke that record, proving by experience that the argument was invalid. The problem is not that experience can never outweigh an argument; we know from the history of science that the experience of empirical investigation has often overturned prevailing arguments. The problem is the idea that the person with an experience is never at the mercy of a person with an argument. In many cases, sound argument does indeed trump experience. This is particularly true when the debate concerns personal experience versus a sound understanding of the Word of God. 

Too often many Christians subject the Word of God to their experience. When our experience conflicts with the Word of God, we set aside the Scriptures. We might take refuge in public opinion or the most recent psychological studies. We allow the common experience of people around us to become normative, denying the wisdom and authority of God in favor of the collective experience of others, especially those who have a title, such as pastor, doctor or expert.

But we have to admit that at times we all know that experience is often a good teacher. But experience is never the best teacher. God, of course, is the best teacher. Why? Because He instructs us from the perspective of eternity and from the riches of His omniscience.

Sometimes we try to cover up our reliance on experience with more orthodox-sounding language.  I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard Christians tell me that the Holy Spirit led them to do things Scripture clearly forbids or that God gave them peace about their decision to act in a way that is clearly contrary to the law of God. But that’s blasphemous slander against the Spirit, as if He would ever countenance sin. It’s bad enough to blame the devil for our own decisions, but we put ourselves in grave danger when we appeal to the Spirit to justify our transgressions.

One of the most powerful devices of manipulation we’ve ever designed is to claim that we have experienced the Spirit’s approval of our actions. How can anyone dare contradict us if we claim divine authority for what we want to do? The result is that we end up silencing any questions about our behavior. But Scripture tells us that the Holy Spirit leads us to holiness, not to sin, and if the Spirit inspired the Scriptures, any experience we have that suggests we can go against biblical teaching cannot be from Him.

As long as we live on this side of heaven, we must deal with the fallenness of our bodies and souls. Seeking to make our experience determinative of right and wrong means repeating Adam and Eve’s sin. Why did they disobey the Lord? Because they trusted their experience that told them “the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise” (Gen. 3:6). They ignored the promises and warnings God revealed to them regarding the fruit of the forbidden tree. Experience can and should teach us, but it can never be the final arbiter of right and wrong. That role belongs to our Creator alone, and His Word gives us the standards by which we must live.